page_title: Hickory, North Carolina
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Hickory, North Carolina / Economy
caption_attribution_description: English: 127 northbound
context_page_description: Hickory is a city located primarily in Catawba County, with formal boundaries extending into Burke and Caldwell counties. The city lies in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Hickory's population at the 2010 census was 40,010, with an estimated population in 2019 of 41,171. Hickory is the principal city in the Hickory–Lenoir–Morganton MSA, in which the population at the 2010 census was 365,497 and is located just northwest of the Charlotte–Concord Combined Statistical Area.
context_section_description: Wagon-making know-how, proximity to expansive forests, and excellent transportation via two intersecting railroads provided fertile ground for the emergence of the furniture industry. Likewise experience with textile manufacturing and easy access to power drove new industries in both fiber-optic cable and pressure-sensitive tape. Forty percent of the world's fiber optic cable is made in the Hickory area.
  Adhesive tape manufacturer Shurtape Technologies and network infrastructure provider CommScope are based in Hickory.
  The furniture industry in Hickory is not as strong as in the decades previous, but still a primary component in the area economy. HSM (company) (formerly Hickory Springs, founded 1944) is a leading manufacturer of mattress coils.  It is estimated 60% of the nation's furniture used to be produced within a 200-mile (320 km) radius of Hickory.
  The Hickory area is marketed as a data-center corridor and is home to large data-centers operated by Apple and Google. Apple's billion-dollar data-center campus just south of Hickory is one of the world's largest.
  Hickory is home to the corporate headquarters of third-party logistics provider Transportation Insight, a member of North Carolina's top revenue tier of privately held businesses. In 2015, the company relocated its headquarters to the historic Lyerly Full Fashioned Mill in downtown Hickory.
caption: Intersection of 1st Avenue NE and NC 127 near Downtown Hickory
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